Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says additional 100% tariffs on China are “effectively off the table”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that additional 100% tariffs on China were “effectively off the table” after a “very good two-day meeting” with Beijing’s top trade negotiator.
“I’m not going to preempt the two leaders who will meet in Korea on Thursday, but I can tell you we had two very good days,” Bessent said of President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Bessent, who led trade negotiations with China, appeared on Sunday’s “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where President Trump began a three-country visit to Asia. Mr. Trump is expected to meet with the Chinese president at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea on Thursday.
China is the United States’ third-largest trading partner after Mexico and Canada, and tariffs on Chinese imports currently stand at 30 percent. Earlier this month, President Trump threat an additional 100% tariff on Chinese imports by early November, in a significant escalation of the trade war between the United States and China.
Mr. Trump warned that the tariffs would take effect if Beijing failed to reach an agreement with the United States, citing China’s new export controls. But after the meetings, Bessent said he expected “the threat of 100 percent to be gone, as was the threat of China’s immediate imposition of a global export control regime.”
The Treasury secretary praised Mr. Trump for giving him and his team an advantage, saying the threat of an additional 100% tariff “gave us great leverage.”
“President Trump is very good at creating leverage for us,” Bessent added.
In the trade meetings, Bessent said he and his Chinese counterpart discussed “a wide variety of issues,” from rare earth magnets to purchases of U.S. agricultural products to Chinese help combating the U.S. fentanyl crisis. He also said the TikTok deal announced last month was ready to be finalized THURSDAY.
